Monday, September 10, 2012

Week 72

The "Grand Opening" for the South Durham Market was a smash. The market was very busy and we had a lot of great conversations with folks about our bialys. Many customers said that they had not seen bialys since decades ago in New York. And our bialys stacked up well to their memories....I think the bialys could be improved by being baked in a hearth oven instead of a convection oven (for a harder, more textured crust), but overall, the interior crumb, flavor, and shape were great. Also, the poppy seeds with the onions in the middle was a good improvement (we had just done onions last time).

New Stand: Add another one to the list. The Sweetwater Ices guys have joined the Hunt Street lineup -- a duo of shaved ice aficianados with matching berets and trike-freezer-carts. I haven't tried their product yet but am looking forward to some fancy flavors!

Prodigal Farm: We collaborated this week with Kat Spann of Prodigal Farm at the South Durham Market to schmear her herb or plain goat cheese on the bialys. They were selling hot....we sold 39 of them by day's end, and were totally delicious.

South Durham Farmer's Market Policies and Procedures: We learned two weeks ago that after a misunderstanding, we cannot sell anything at that market sliding-scale for fear of "undercutting" other vendors, which of course is not the intent of our model and mission. This will be brought up at an October all-vendor meeting where hopefully we can get the go-ahead to switch back to the old model. It's extremely odd keeping set prices after doing sliding-scale for so long. Sorry for the inconvenience to any of our customers who expect sliding-scale for their budgets.